Hugh strode into the yard, dogs trailing him, ears pricked for his orders. Strolling like a prince in his kingdom, he made for the cage closest to the main gate. Two monks, carrying a chest between them, paused on their way to a cart in order to let him pass. A guard hailed him and Hugh waved in return but kept on walking. In a moment of inspiration, he took the sword and ran it along the bars of the cage, hearing the guard who had previously stepped over to the kitchen laugh and call out, “Good jest!”

Few of these men know each other, he thought, but that did not surprise him. Bishop Thomas commanded by fear: there would be little loyalty at the palace and much changing of guards, many new faces amidst those who through age or family ties must stay on here.

Yet even guards as slack as these would eventually wonder where their lord was, so he must hurry. He poured the rest of the flask over the lock. A hand grabbed at him. He grabbed back and smashed it to the bars.

“I am helping, friend, so do not interrupt.” A whimper told him he had been understood.

He turned, leaving the cage smoking gently, a yellow vapor issuing from its lock, and paid no heed to the gasps and curses from the prisoners.

“Go, lads!” he encouraged the dogs, and the great hounds, gladdened by his voice and sweeping finger, shot off in the direction he pointed to and crashed into the approaching guards.

“Hey!”

“Down! Down, I say!”

“You, soldier! Wait!”

He ignored the turmoil and the command and turned his back. Listening to his heart, hearing his boots striking the cobbles like a ram at a castle wall, he stalked to the postern gate. A swirl of midden and cooking smells hit him, then another whiff of acid. Surely the lock must soon break on the cage? He walked on.

There were no archers but his shoulders pricked as he lengthened his stride, striving not to break into a run. A running man attracts attention, and so far these guards were bewildered. They had not marked that their bishop was missing, nor that his prize hostage of months was out in the bailey.

Doing what? What exactly was David about? He could see Joanna moving in the shadows like the clever wench she was, carrying a bag over her shoulder as she guided her father smoothly to the postern. David was standing by one of the abbey carts, looking up at the cloudless blue sky as if the arch of heaven was new-made for him.

“Give a Templar a nail and he will try to use it as an astrolabe,” Hugh muttered. Exasperated, he moved out of the palace wall shadow to recover his errant relative for the second time.

“David.” He had reached the cart.

“I had forgotten how blue.” David lowered his head and looked at him, his wide eyes puzzled. “Are you sure we should leave?”

Are you gone mad? Six months ago, Hugh would have said it, but being with Joanna had taught him to consider words. He took David’s arm. “We have only a little way to go now. Joanna and Solomon are there already.”

They were, too. Joanna was speaking to the postern guard, pointing to the distant glitter of the river, and did not seem to be making much headway. The guard was shaking his head and motioning her back.

“Come,” he said to David, wanting to be with Joanna. He had other, quicker methods of persuasion.

David rubbed at his eyes and yawned. “I am for my bed at this time; a sleep before midday. She will leave you, once she is free of here. Why should she stay with you? No other woman has.”

“That is in God’s arms, now go.” Hugh gave his brother a mighty shove, possibly harder than was needed, but he had no stomach for their father’s old complaints. “Move or I cut you,” he growled, and that threat stirred David into a lumbering run.

Finally—

And behind him, now, at last, he heard a sudden crash as the lock on the first cage shattered. Twisting round, he saw ragged prisoners pouring into the yard. Some made for the main gate, others were struggling with the monks to seize goods off the carts, a few made straight for the guards, swearing vengeance.

“Stop them!” shouted a new voice. “No, you fools! Them! Hold them!”

It was the fat steward. He had appeared by the postern, returning to the palace from the town, and was now blocking the narrow gate. Even as Hugh sprinted for the fellow, barging through knots of straggling, blinking men, the steward snatched a bow from the postern guard and notched an arrow.

He is aiming at Joanna!

Hugh plucked a book from one of the carts and threw it. “Not her!” he roared, charging for the man.

The heavy volume struck the steward in the middle of the chest. He tottered, but did not release the bow.

“No!” Joanna dropped her sack and launched herself at him.

“Stop!” Hugh’s desperate warning came too late. The world about him seemed to slow down, turn to dust and stone, as he strained and strained to reach the enemy first, as he dropped the sword to avoid striking Joanna, as he reached, arms outstretched, to seize the man’s throat.

The steward was yelling something he could not hear, his mouth jerking into an ugly scowl, and then he fell like a cast stone slingshot. He hit the postern cobbles and sprawled in the gateway, silent and still. The guard had already chosen his path and was gone.

“I hit him with this,” Solomon remarked, staring down at the unconscious steward with an expression of mingled delight and dread. He looked to Hugh like a small boy caught eating an apple in an orchard. “When I saw you throw the book, it gave me an idea.” He shook the sack. “I hit him with these,” he said. “Pestle and mortar and a crucible. Did I do right?”

“You dropped this,” said a voice behind them. Hugh turned to find David with the sword. He looked less abstracted than he had earlier, and seemed to have more sense, which was a start. “What?” he asked now, glancing round as one of the monastery carts crackled into flames. A group of prisoners was dancing round the blazing cart, buffeting the monks aside.

“Keep that for the moment and keep moving.” Hugh picked up the sack in one hand and plucked Joanna off her feet with the other. Ignoring her protests—“I can walk as well as you!”—he stepped over the sleeping steward and walked out of the palace into the town.

“Let me go!” Joanna tried to nip at his ear with her teeth. He tightened his grip about her middle until she gasped. “Unfair!”

“Yield, then, wife. Wife-to-be,” he amended. In the victory of the moment, delighted to have Joanna snug in his arms again and determined to keep her there, he turned to Solomon. “If that is acceptable, sir?”

This was not how he had planned to ask, but the question thundered out of his mouth with the force of a warhorse charge. He could not stop it and now he could only wait with stopped breath and sweating palms for the answer.

Say yes, say yes, say yes….

“You have my blessing,” Solomon said at once.

Thanks be to God and all the saints of Christendom! Hugh kissed Joanna lightly on her round, astonished “O” of a mouth, swung her higher into his arms, and kept on walking.